I knew the harddisk on my iMac is dying soon. After all, I had the iMac for 5 years already. But I wasn’t expecting it to die suddenly without any warning. I was expecting the iMac to go cranky for a few days before the harddisk die. But no. It just died suddenly out of the blue while I’m watching YouTube.

Luckily I always have Time Machine on. So my data are safe.

I could send my iMac to a Apple Care Centre for repair. Or just throw my iMac away since it is already 5 years old. But I decided to be slightly more adventurous by replacing the harddisk myself. It shouldn’t be that hard since I’ve assembled my own PC in the past. Besides, the process is well documented on iFixit website. They even have a YouTube video on this.

So I went to Sim Lim Square to buy a new Harddisk. Luckily the prices of Harddisk has gone down significantly after the Thailand flood. I also didn’t get the largest harddisk available. I figured that 1TB should be good enough for a 5 years old iMac. Besides, the old Harddisk was just 320GB.

So I got a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black harddisk at S$133. Pretty good price I guess.

Opening the iMac is surprisingly easy. I bought 2 suction cup to lift the glass panel which was attached to the iMac body using magnet. There are quite a number of screws to unscrew before I can remove the iMac casing. Then come the tricky part.

The harddisk is located behind the LCD panel. So in order to replace the Harddisk, I need to disconnect a few cables and lift the LCD panel up. After replacing the harddisk, I just need to put everything back. Need to be extra careful not to touch the LCD panel or glass panel and leave my fingerprints behind.

The entire process took me less than 1 hour.

Apple made it very easy to reinstall Mac OS on their machine. Just pop the Mac OS CD into the drive and boot up. By the way, you need to run disk utilities to format the new harddisk first before you can install Mac OS. After installing Mac OS, I restore the system using Time Machine. Restoring from Time Machine took more than 4 hours. But after that, everything is back to what it used to be.

It’s like the harddisk didn’t crash at all.

And since I was replacing my harddisk, I also took the opportunity to upgrade my RAM from 2GB to 4GB. Now my 5 years old iMac feels snappy.

Hi , as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn’t I get to enjoy this time of joy and ‘blue water’ and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn’t wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen …..you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger

Most company would simply ignore such comments. Others might just reply with some well crafted message. Well, Bodyform decided to do a video response. Check this out.

Some of the Pacific Internet users might have received a letter informing them that Pacific Internet will be discontinuing their residential services from 1 December 2012. These services include Residential Dial Up, Broadband, Email, Domain Name Services, Internet Security and Residential Fax Services.

Those who are still using @pacific.net.sg email address will no longer be able to send out email from 1 December 2012. They can however still be able to forward email received on the @pacific.net.sg email address to another email address until 28 February 2013. All emails in the mailbox will be deleted on 1 December 2012. Customers are advised to download all their emails and setup email forwarding before 1 December 2012.

Those with domain name service with Pacific Internet are advised to find an alternative service provider before 1 December 2012 to ensure that the website remains reachable through the domain name.

To minimize the interruption to broadband service, Pacific Internet have partnered SingNet to offer existing Residential Broadband Service customers exclusive promotional rates to migrate to their broadband service. The offer is valid until 31 October 2012 and all customer should receive the details of the offers in their letter.

Pacific Internet is still around. The company will be focusing on carrier and enterprise customers.

But it is sad to see Pacific Internet discontinuing their residential service after 17 years. After all, many Singaporeans, including myself, were using Pacific Internet when we first started using the Internet. They were the best in terms of quality of service and value for money back in those days. Does anyone still remember their old logo?

Disclaimer: These are my own views and not representative of those of my employer.

Singaporean singer-songwriter, Olivia Ong, and MediaCorp artiste, Desmond Tan, have been chosen by Samsung as the celebrity ambassadors for the much-anticipated GALAXY Note II LTE and GALAXY Camera respectively.

Olivia Ong will participate in “The Wonderland” project and embark on a creative journey to compose an original song “Wonderland”. “Wonderland” will be made into a music video, to capture the story behind the song and more importantly, better understand what inspires her. Olivia will capture her inspirations and write her thoughts using the Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE, and fans will get to join Olivia in her creativity process by interacting and sharing ideas with Olivia and catch behind-the-scenes videos of her creative journey to create this original song.

Desmond Tan is a photography buff, who loves to share photos of his special moments with friends, fans and family. In preparation for his upcoming lead role in a drama, “96 Café” where he will be taking on the role of a photographer, Desmond has been exploring the various features of the GALAXY Camera by taking photos and sharing them directly from his GALAXY camera with fans who follow him on Instagram.

The Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE will be available in Singapore from 20 October 2012 at S$998 without contract. The Samsung GALAXY Camera will be available in Singapore from November 2012. Pricing for GALAXY Camera will be unveiled at a later date.